Conversations with Yourself
by Kelly Chambliss
Summary: In his head, Severus talks to himself about life and death, Potter and Draco, souls and Sectumsempra.


**A/N = **This story was written for the 2014 Remix Redux fest. The original is an excellent short piece (660 words) by Lunabee34 called "Conversations with the Dead" (you can find it on A03, but FFN won't let me link to it). Lunabee's story is told from Draco's pov; I chose to re-imagine it from Severus's.

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Conversations With Yourself

by Kelly Chambliss

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**1**.

You watch the year and the task take its toll on Draco. As he struggles and fails to kill Dumbledore, he grows thinner and twitchier and so pale that he actually looks the part of the "son" that Voldemort sometimes calls him.

It's a term that used to signal the high favour in which the Malfoys stood. But now, when the Dark Lord stretches his dead-white skin into a smile and hisses, "Draco, my s-s-s-on," it's to remind the boy and his parents and everyone else of the family's failure and fall.

When he hears it, Draco turns, if possible, even paler, and you can see the bones beneath his skin.

**2.**

Dumbledore sees the change in the boy, too.

"I'm worried, Severus," he tells you. "He's on the edge. He nearly killed the Bell girl; it was a close thing. We must watch him, keep him from doing more harm. We must not risk his soul."

You nod and agree to increase your surveillance.

You do not remind Dumbledore of your own soul. Despite his suggestions to the contrary, you are sure he believes it to be long lost.

**3.**

You soon realise that Potter is also watching Draco. He goes about it with all the finesse that you've come to expect from him - - which is to say that he shows about as much subtlety as a Howler. If there weren't so much at stake, you'd root for Draco's success in his mission, if only to spite the Prick Who Lived.

As it is, you merely add "keep track of Potter" to your ever-growing list of responsibilities, and you summon your house-elf.

There's a pop, and Cubby appears, wearing his customary deep-green tea-towel belted with silver. He's a Slytherin to his core, and you trust him far more than you do most of your human colleagues, whether Hogwarts staff or Death Eaters.

"Master needs Cubby?"

You tell him that is he is to follow Harry Potter and report to you at once if Potter and Draco are ever alone. You don't insult him by reminding him to take care not to be seen; Cubby is a professional, and you respect that.

But you do order him to make sure that he gets sufficient food and sleep. Left to himself, Cubby would die in the service of your mission, but you refuse to let that happen. One of the two of you is enough of a blood sacrifice.

**4.**

When Draco first starts spending time in the boys' bathroom on the sixth floor, you are not alarmed. Total privacy is a hard thing to come by in a boarding school, even one with as many hidden spaces and odd, deserted nooks as Hogwarts. Sometimes a toilet stall is a welcome refuge.

Then, too, you know from your own experience what unending stress and fear can do to the bowels.

No, Draco's fondness for the bathroom is no mystery.

Not initially, at least.

But his minutes there soon turn to hours, and the first worm of worry eats its way into your brain. The thought almost makes you smile: you remember a brighter time, years ago, when you used that metaphor in the staffroom; you can still hear Minerva's tart response. "I wonder your brain isn't a veritable warren of gnawed paths by this time, Severus," she'd said, "what with all the worrying you must do about Slytherin losing the Quidditch and House cups."

You'd offered an equally sniping rejoinder about how of course _she_ didn't have such a problem, since Gyffindors never had to worry: their losing was assured.

It had been agreeable moment, one of almost-friendship, and the memory briefly pleases you. But you set it aside irritably; you have no time for such foolishness now, and in any case, whatever mild regard Minerva or anyone else at Hogwarts may have felt for you will soon be gone. Who will banter with Dumbledore's murderer?

You turn your mind back to Draco and the bathroom and your newest fear: what if he is looking for another way back into the Chamber of Secrets? You told Dumbledore after the Weasley girl's rescue that he was naïve to think the death of the basilisk and the destruction of Riddle's diary meant that the Chamber was no longer dangerous. Strong Dark magic of such long standing leaves far deeper traces than the gormless likes of Potter and Ron Weasley can destroy.

"There is more to be feared there," you had argued. "We need to explore the Chamber further, find what other secrets it may hold."

But of course the headmaster had merely smiled his benign, condescending smile and assured you that all would be taken care of.

He believes too much in his own power, that old man - - even now, when the withered remains of his dead hand should be a constant reminder to him of his hubris. You know Tom Riddle as Dumbledore never will. You know how he would have exulted at finding such a Chamber, how he would have been convinced - - is no doubt still convinced - - that it existed only to serve his own greatness. He would never have contented himself with one adolescent use of it.

No, basilisk or no basilisk, the Chamber is still a threat; you are certain of it. And the last thing you want is to have its power unlocked once more, especially not by Draco. The boy will be unable to control whatever it is he will find, and if he inadvertently disrupts any of the Dark Lord's plans, Voldemort's revenge will be far worse than whatever anguish Draco thinks he is facing now.

To your surprise, you find that your lost soul left behind enough humanity that you don't wish such a fate on anyone, let alone a boy who, despite his wealth and his privilege and his attractiveness and his "pure" blood, is more like you than he or his parents could ever understand.

**5.**

But it is not the Chamber of Secrets that Draco seeks. You're both relieved and a bit disdainful when your eavesdropping spell reveals the pathetic truth: he's merely a scared and troubled teenager seeking consolation from Moaning Myrtle, another teenager as lost and clueless as himself, ghost though she may be. They want to wail and cry and bemoan their lot together, because dramatic teenage misery loves company, of course, and neither has yet learnt, as you have, the futility of fighting against their fates.

Your relief is short-lived, however, for you have also learnt that spending too much time with ghosts has its own dangers.

And its own temptations.

"_What's it like to be dead, Myrtle?"_ you hear Draco ask the girl.

You know that you must act soon if you are to save him.

**6. **

Yet once again, you are pushed aside, doomed to be forever a tool in other people's grand dramas. They are the ones with the stories; you are only the stage crew.

Ah, well. To borrow the words of some Muggle whose name you have forgotten, you are not Prince Hamlet, nor were meant to be.

Before you can take steps to separate Draco from the siren moan of Myrtle, Potter intervenes.

Cubby comes to fetch you, his face grim. "Master come now, no questions, NOW," he says, and you follow him at once.

You can hear Myrtle shrieking "MURDER IN THE BATHROOM!" long before you reach the door and rush inside.

The scene in your mind is forever etched in white and red: Draco on the floor, white and dying; Potter kneeling helplessly next to him, his face equally blanched.

And the red blood everywhere.

**7.**

It can only be the _Sectumsempra_; no other spell cuts with such surgical precision. You shove Potter away as roughly as you can and begin the healing incantation, and with your mind you say no, no, no, no, no, no to the desperate entreaty in Draco's eyes.

No.

He can't have what he wants, life doesn't work that way, not for him, not for you.

No.

**8.**

After you take Draco to the hospital wing and see him safely into Poppy's hands (she doesn't waste time questioning your terse explanation of "accident," but you know she doesn't believe you). . .after you deal with and dismiss Potter (who, even as he stands covered in Draco's gore, seems more concerned about his detention and his missed Quidditch match than about the fact that he just nearly killed a boy. And Dumbledore fears for _Draco's_ soul?). . .after all this, you return to your rooms to change your robes and to clean at least the external, physical blood off your hands.

Then you pour a small firewhisky and sit down.

You don't want to think, but yours is not a brain that gives you such an option. It will force you to think everything through to the end whether you want to or not.

As you tried to show Draco while he lay dying, you can't get what you want in life.

Even when what you want is death.

Or at least, you can't get it when you yourself would choose it. Draco would have chosen death then, on the wet and bloodied floor of a grotty school bathroom. You wouldn't be surprised if he'd even engineered Potter's attack, since the Moron-Who-Lived is one of those puppets forever being manipulated by others while thinking himself the in-control Saviour of the world.

You know how much Draco wanted death because you could see it in his eyes, because you had heard it in his voice as he talked to the ghost girl.

And because you so very much want the same thing yourself.

Draco came close - - you saw his hand become nearly transparent as Myrtle reached out to clutch it - - but his time has not yet come.

Neither has yours, but you at least have the comfort of knowing that it might not be far off.

You know this because, after you were finally able to send Potter out of your sight, Moaning Myrtle returned to the bathroom, easing cautiously out of a toilet, unable to conceal her dismay at finding no dead Draco lying on the floor.

"You saved him?" she asked, her disappointment more palpable than her form.

"For what it's worth," you said, wiping some blood from your face.

She floated forward to catch your reddened hand, and for a moment, you fancied that you could feel her fingers warm and solid in your own.


End file.
